SERMON I.

IN RECOMMENDED IN THE USE AND APPLI
CATION OF SCRIPTURE LANGUAGE.

n as our beloved brother Paul also, accord the wisdom given unto him, hath written un; as also in all his epistles, speaking in them se things; in which are some things hard to Iderstood, which they that are unlearned and ble wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, EDM their own destruction.-2 Pet. iii. 15, 16.

THIS

must not be dissembled that there are many SHOP OF difficulties in the Christian Scriptures; whilst, e same time, more, I believe, and greater, justly be imputed to certain maxims of interation, which have obtained authority without COURSE on, and are received without inquiry. One of e, as I apprehend, is the expecting to find, in present circumstances of Christianity, a meanfor, or something answering to, every appellaand expression which occurs in Scripture; GREAT in other words, the applying to the personal dition of Christians at this day, those titles, rases, propositions, and arguments, which be g solely to the situation of Christianity at its st institution.

ESCRIBED

TUDE,

TIFUL AND

HAPLAIN,

I am aware of an objection which weighs much th many serious tempers, namely, that to supV. PALESE any part of Scripture to be inapplicable to

, is to suppose a part of Scripture to be useless; hich seems to detract from the perfection we atibute to these oracles of our salvation. To this can only answer, that it would have been one of he strangest things in the world, if the writings of the New Testament had not, like all other books, been composed for the apprehension, and consequently adapted to the circumstances, of the persons they were addressed to; and that it would have been equally strange, if the great, and in many respects the inevitable alterations, whic

have taken place in those circumstances, did not vary the application of Scripture language.

I design, in the following discourse, to propose some examples of this variation, from which you will judge, as I proceed, of the truth and importance of our general observation.

:

First; At the time the Scriptures were written, none were baptized but converts, and none were converted but from conviction; and convic tion produced, for the most part, a corresponding reformation of life and manners. Hence baptism was only another name for conversion, and conversion was supposed to be sincere in this sense was our Saviour's promise, "He that believeth and is baptized, shall be saved;"* and in the same his command to St. Paul, “Arise, and be bapti zed, and wash away thy sins." This was that bap tism," for the remission of sins," to which St. Pe ter invited the Jews upon the day of Pentecost; that "washing of regeneration, "by which, Paul writes to Titus, he saved us."

as St.

Now,

tains in most Christian churches at present, where when we come to speak of the baptism which ob no conversion is supposed, or possible, it is manifest, this these expressions be applied at all, they mas be applied with extreme qualification

The community of Christians were estrictest union, and divided from the al of men connected amongst themworld by a real difference of principle

#hg, and what was more observable, by

eculiarities of worship and beha

v, considered collectively, and art from the rest of manus dispensation, as well as by a superior purity of life view, and in opposition to they were denominated in

† Acts xxii. 16.
? Titus iij. 5.

to co son

the l and they

thes

from

O

Scripture by titles of great seeming dignity and import; they were "elect," "called," "saints;"* they were in Christ;"t they were "a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people." That is, these terms were employed to distinguish the professors of Christianity from the rest of mankind, in the same manner as the names of Greek and Barbarian, Jew and Gentile; distinguished the people of Greece and Israel from other nations. The application of such phrases to the whole body of Christians is become now obscure; partly because it is not easy to conceive of Christians as a body at all, by reaat be son of the extent of their name and numbers, and the little visible union that subsists among them; and partly because the heathen world with whom they were compared, and to which comparison ese phrases relate, is now ceased, or is removed n our observation. Supposing, therefore, these essions to have a perpetual meaning, and forgetting the original use of them, or findat, at this time, in a great measure exhaustinsignificant, we resort to a sense and an ation of them, easier, it may be, to our comnsion, but extremely foreign from the de

d in the

and be

their authors, namely, to distinguish inals amongst us, the professors of Christianom one another: agreeably to which idea ost flattering of these names, the "elect," ed," "saints," have, by bold and unlearned been appropriated to themselves and their arty with a presumption and conceit injuri

the reputation of our religion amongst a that are without," and extremely disgustthe sober part of its professors; whereas, ch titles were intended in a sense common Christian converts, is well argued from maces in which they occur, in which places ay plainly substitute the terms convert or

Delly was whine God forekne
Un di the world, was what h
Was the eternal purpose wh
Chat Jesus: and, by conseque
their collective capacity, wer

mat is, in the language of the apos store knowledge, predestination orist before the foundation of the world; he did predestinate; they were ch they whom he did foreknow," Weelect according to the foreknowle put the Father." This doctrine has nothi

obscure. But what have we ma rejection of the Jews, and the adop

nother community into their place, compowhilst it was carrying on, an object of great nitude in the attention of the inspired writers understood and observed it. This event, ch engaged so much the thoughts of the aposis now only read of, and hardly that-the`reand the importance of it are little known or ended to. Losing sight, therefore, of the prooccasion of these expressions, yet willing, after fashion, to adapt them to ourselves, and findnothing else in our circumstances that suited h them, we have learnt at length to apply them the final destiny of individuals at the day of gment; and, upon this foundation, has been weted a doctrine, which lays the axe at once to me root of all religion, that of an absolute appointment to salvation or perdition independent of ourves or any thing we can do; and, what is extraPinary, those very arguments and expressions som. chap. ix. x. xi.), which the apostle employ

い

to vindicate the impartial mercies of God, theinst the narrow and excluding claims of Jewish judice, have been interpreted to establish a pensation the most arbitrary and partial that uld be devised.

Fourthly; The conversion of a grown person 5m heathenism to Christianity, which is the case conversion commonly intended in the epistles, as a change of which we have now no just conSaption: it was a new name, a new language, a ew society; a new faith, a new hope; a new obow, ct of worship, a new rule of life; a history was e "chsclosed full of discovery and surprise; a prosrld;ect of futurity was unfolded, beyond imagination leful and august; the same description applies,

a great part, though not entirely, to the conersion of a Jew. This, accompanied as it was with he pardon of every former sin, (Rom. iii. 25.), was such an era in a man's life, so remarkable a period in his recollection, such a revolution of every thing that was most important to him, as might well admit of those strong figures and sig